Israeli "Cow’s Milk Without Cows" Start-up Raises $13m in Seed Funding

“Cow’s milk without cows” is coming to the Israeli market by 2023, after a start-up raised a record $13m from investors. Just as the name implies, it will make traditional dairy without squeezing any udders or impregnating any cows. Its products are from microorganisms.

The Tel Aviv-based Imagindairy says the milk it produced would be identical to cow’s milk, but the cow, and her associated methane, would be replaced by fungi or other plant microorganisms programmed to produce milk proteins.

This process involves inserting DNA instructions for the production of whey and casein, the principal milk proteins, into the microorganisms. To turn the whey and casein proteins produced by the microorganisms into cow-free milk and dairy, Imagindairy will add plant-based fat, sugar, and water.

Methane-free cow’s milk will likely reduce the impact of climate change and deforestation significantly. The livestock rearing industry is responsible for about 32% of human-generated methane, mainly from the planet’s billion-plus cattle. Cutting methane emissions is thought to be the strongest lever available to slow climate heating over the next 25 years.

There are already huge numbers of alternative milk types on the market, and recent years have seen massive expansions in demand for oat milk, soy milk, almond milk, and other varieties, which make “milk” from other substitutes. But none of them can quite replace the taste of cows' milk for a milk-loving palate.

Agriculture companies working to produce animal-free fish, meat, and dairy substitutes have struggled to operate on a commercial scale. Imagindairy has developed a simpler way to isolate the milk proteins from the microorganisms that allows to scale up production much easier.

Imagindairy’s milk only requires 10% of the water needed to produce traditional cow’s milk and 1% of the land. The 1% includes the land needed to produce carbon and nitrogen sources to feed the microorganisms.

This could be a total game-changer; read more about it here.

Off to enjoy a glass of (almond) milk, till next time!

J